tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/impressionism-29990/articles
Impressionism – The Conversation
2022-10-11T12:08:46Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190785
2022-10-11T12:08:46Z
2022-10-11T12:08:46Z
Three Impressionist paintings that give an insight into the complicated history of breastfeeding in the 19th century
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488975/original/file-20221010-15-yr35lq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C1997%2C1392&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The history of breastfeeding reveals uncomfortable truths about women, work and money. An unlikely place where the history of nursing is clearly visible is in Impressionist paintings. </p>
<p>Although the art of Manet and his followers is best known for its sunny landscapes and scenes of Parisian leisure, many of these paintings tell complicated human stories. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and Berthe Morisot depict breastfeeding as the perfect example of women’s invisible labour.</p>
<p>In the 19th century, wet-nursing – where women were paid to nurse someone else’s child – was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/286130">widely practised in Europe</a>. </p>
<p>Wet-nursing is an age-old practice, but in 19th-century Paris, as more women went to work in Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/31/story-cities-12-paris-baron-haussmann-france-urban-planner-napoleon">newly designed modern city</a>, it was a booming industry. <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/38042">Rural wet nurses</a> (ideally in their 20s, in good health, with strong teeth, and thick white milk) were regularly employed to nurse the children of both urban lower- and middle-class women and were one of the most prized domestic servants in the bourgeois home. </p>
<p>However, following French chemist <a href="https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/louis-pasteur">Louis Pasteur’s scientific discoveries</a> of how bacteria spread, as well as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684040/">medical publications</a> promoting the health-giving benefits of a mother’s milk, maternal nursing began to be favoured over wet nursing. Also, conservative Catholic and liberal political ideologies fused to encourage breastfeeding as central to modern womanhood.</p>
<p>Breastfeeding was not a common theme in Impressionism but its treatment by Degas, Renoir and Morisot gives a fascinating insight into some of the ways women who practised it were perceived.</p>
<h2>1. At the Races in the Countryside by Edgar Degas (1869)</h2>
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<img alt="A painting of a woman breastfeeding in a carriage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484960/original/file-20220915-37172-hs6bel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484960/original/file-20220915-37172-hs6bel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484960/original/file-20220915-37172-hs6bel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484960/original/file-20220915-37172-hs6bel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484960/original/file-20220915-37172-hs6bel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484960/original/file-20220915-37172-hs6bel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484960/original/file-20220915-37172-hs6bel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Degas’ painting focuses on wet-nursing among France’s wealthy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Edgar_Degas_-_At_the_Races_in_the_Countryside_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>In At the Races in the Countryside (1869) we see a wealthy family, the picture of modern success, in a fancy carriage. The mother and the wet nurse (identified through her outfit and exposed breast) are seated together while the sharply dressed father, and the bulldog (an image of modern domesticity) both gaze directly at the baby and breast. </p>
<p>As art critic Gal Ventura <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/9789004376755/BP000014.xml">notes</a> in her encyclopaedic study of breastfeeding in art, there are links here with sexuality that draw connections between the wet nurse and the prostitute, a figure Degas often depicted. Both were working women who sold their bodies, or rather their bodily functions, for profit to wealthy families. Although the wet nurse was closer to Madonna than a whore. </p>
<p>What Degas highlights here – via the convergence of the male gaze, the female body at work and the theme of urban leisure – is the pervasive presence of modern capitalism and exchange even within a painting that takes leisure as its ostensible focus.</p>
<h2>2. Maternity by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1885)</h2>
<p>The shift towards maternal nursing is seen in a series of works Renoir made in the 1880s of his future wife Aline nursing their first-born son, Pierre. Aline was a seamstress from the countryside and so seeing her breastfeed was less shocking to an uptight bourgeois audience. </p>
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<img alt="A woman breastfeeds her child while sitting on a log." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484962/original/file-20220915-42385-c5j7eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484962/original/file-20220915-42385-c5j7eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484962/original/file-20220915-42385-c5j7eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484962/original/file-20220915-42385-c5j7eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484962/original/file-20220915-42385-c5j7eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484962/original/file-20220915-42385-c5j7eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484962/original/file-20220915-42385-c5j7eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Auguste Renoir’s Maternity (also known as The Nursing Child – Madame Renoir and her son, Pierre) sees a move away from wet-nursing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Auguste_Renoir_-_Maternity_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>In the first of this series called Maternity, Renoir shows Aline sitting on a fallen tree, very much looking like a peasant with a ruddy face in her straw hat and dowdy clothes. She is also sexualised through her plump, protruding breast and direct gaze. </p>
<p>Breasts, <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/38042">Ventura writes</a>, “are a scandal for the patriarchy because they disrupt the border between motherhood and sexuality”. </p>
<p>Aline seems blissful, as does Pierre, but there is something off. Renoir’s association of his breastfeeding spouse with the natural world is troublesome. The depiction echoes the claim made by the feminist Simone de Beauvoir in <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/360348/the-second-sex-by-simone-de-beauvoir/9780099595731">The Second Sex</a> about how under the patriarchy, through a woman’s ability to breastfeeding and become a mother, “a woman is only a female domesticated animal”. Her serene nature also suggests that breastfeeding is not a strain or “work”. </p>
<h2>The Wet Nurse Angèle feeding Julie Manet by Berthe Morisot (1880)</h2>
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<img alt="A woman breastfeeds a child." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484964/original/file-20220915-25774-mf5qhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484964/original/file-20220915-25774-mf5qhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484964/original/file-20220915-25774-mf5qhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484964/original/file-20220915-25774-mf5qhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484964/original/file-20220915-25774-mf5qhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484964/original/file-20220915-25774-mf5qhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484964/original/file-20220915-25774-mf5qhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Berthe Morisot’s striking painting depicts another woman breastfeeding her child.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Morisot_-_the-wet-nurse-angele-feeding-julie-manet.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>It’s in Berthe Morisot’s small painting The Wet Nurse Angèle feeding Julie Manet (1880), that the connection between art, work and money becomes most apparent. </p>
<p>Painted in dazzling hues of white, pink and green, it reveals the blended figures of Morisot’s baby and the woman employed to nurse her in the family home. The situation itself is radical – a female artist, rather than a male artist, painting a woman breastfeeding her child, not out of nurturing instinct, but for money. But it is how the picture is painted that makes it so fascinating. </p>
<p>What shocks the viewer is not the naked breast, but the fierceness of the brushstrokes that cover the unfinished canvas, blending flesh, figure, dress and background in thick, uneven strokes that fire off in a multitude of directions. There is something hugely expressive about this painting that maybe only a mother can feel. </p>
<p>The physical frenzy of paint communicates manual labour. This is an angry painting about motherhood and the act of painting. It’s a painting about the hidden work in creating an artistic product and one where both the milk and the painting are, as <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429492839-14/morisot-wet-nurse-linda-nochlin">feminist art historian Linda Nochlin</a> first observed, “products being produced or created for the market, for profit”.</p>
<p>Morisot exhibited more than any other impressionist. Dependent on her mother and her in-laws, the Manets, selling her art was her only chance to have any kind of financial freedom. This would have been impossible without a wet nurse and a supportive husband. Thankfully, for modern art, she had both.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Moran received funding for this research from the Society for French Studies in the form of the 2021 Research Prize Fellowship</span></em></p>
The history of breastfeeding reveals uncomfortable truths about women, work and money.
Claire Moran, Reader in French Studies, Queen's University Belfast
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180071
2022-05-25T14:16:38Z
2022-05-25T14:16:38Z
How the scientific equivalent of impressionist paintings can make you feel data
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465255/original/file-20220525-16-xfeb4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1500&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Water Lilies by Claude Monet (1919).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/water-lilies-by-claude-monet-1919-747216235">Everett Collection/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A group of artists shook the world in the 1860s by painting what they saw, thought and felt. They became known as the impressionists and they weren’t interested in recreating perfect visual appearances like hundreds of artists before them.</p>
<p>Instead, painters like Claude Monet strove for a new way of representing the world in order to keep it alive and real. They did this by creating an “impression” of how a person, landscape or object appeared to them at a certain moment in time. In doing so, they captured all aspects of their changing societies and transformed the very nature of the way people think of and engage with art. </p>
<p>Our world today is shaped by similarly intangible things, such as data. Like the impressionists, scientists must visualise these things in a way that can help people see the world (and how it is changing) anew. </p>
<p>In 2020, the average person created at least 1.7 megabytes of data <a href="https://techjury.net/blog/how-much-data-is-created-every-day/#gref">per second</a> while traversing online banking systems, emails, medical records and social networks. To try and represent data, scientists typically use graphs or charts. With much of society now suffering from what has been described as <a href="https://www.netmotionsoftware.com/blog/industry-disruption/data-fatigue">data fatigue</a>, traditional methods of depicting all the facts and figures swirling around are unlikely to cut it. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-9887241/Ten-years-smart-meter-look-successful-rollout-been.html">smart meters</a> that were introduced to households in the UK were supposed to motivate people to save energy through a better understanding of where it was being wasted. But research suggests many people find the data visualisations confusing and difficult to relate to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2017.1356164">everyday household activities</a>.</p>
<p>Just when people need to engage in the effort to avert the worst consequences of climate change, data fatigue is turning their attention elsewhere. Like the 19th-century impressionism movement did for art, 21st-century science needs a new way to depict data.</p>
<h2>An impression of island life</h2>
<p>Data impressionism is supposed to imbue data with a vividness that enhances understanding and possibly even influences the behaviour of those viewing it. </p>
<p>The idea is to make the data more perceptible and so, easier to interpret. A data impression should only depict <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339640603_Towards_a_Powerful_Solution_for_Data_Accuracy_Assessment_in_the_Big_Data_Context">accurate data</a>, but unlike traditional charts and figures, it’s designed to make people reflect on how the information makes them feel. </p>
<p>One data impression my colleagues and I have developed echoes the work of impressionist painters who used shifting light and colour to depict an impression of a scene, like Claude Monet’s in his 1872 painting <a href="https://www.claude-monet.com/impression-sunrise.jsp">Impression, Sunrise</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454952/original/file-20220329-18-1riqexg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An impressionist painting depicting a shadowed figure in a boat with a misty harbour scene in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454952/original/file-20220329-18-1riqexg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454952/original/file-20220329-18-1riqexg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454952/original/file-20220329-18-1riqexg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454952/original/file-20220329-18-1riqexg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454952/original/file-20220329-18-1riqexg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454952/original/file-20220329-18-1riqexg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454952/original/file-20220329-18-1riqexg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monet’s Impression, Sunrise evokes dawn without creating a photo-realistic depiction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression,_Sunrise#/media/File:Monet_-_Impression,_Sunrise.jpg">Claude Monet</a></span>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.visitcardiff.com/highlights/flat-holm-island/">island of Flat Holm</a> is a nature reserve that sits a few miles off the coast of Cardiff, Wales in the Bristol Channel. Flat Holm contains rare plants, such as rock sea-lavender and wild leek, and a colony of lesser black-backed gulls. Its protection depends on it remaining a place of interest in the public consciousness. Lots of data has been collected on the biodiversity of Flat Holm over the years, and a local weather station keeps tabs on the sunshine, wind and rainfall. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jri9CteYWfM">A temporary exhibition</a> running at the <a href="https://www.techniquest.org/">Techniquest science museum</a> in Cardiff depicts some of these data streams using coloured LED lighting, moving parts and reflective surfaces. An online app was developed to support the exhibit and is now used by the island warden to count and report the number of seagulls, butterflies, shelducks and other species. An impression of this data is then revealed to the audience at the museum through an interactive map. </p>
<p>A touch of the seagull button on the display releases a pattern of colour and movement. If lots of seagulls have been counted on the island, the shifting coloured LED lights are vibrant and fast. If few seagulls were reported, the flickering LED lights are slow and calm.</p>
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<p>The exhibit also captures a real-time impression of what the weather on the island is like. Data pulled from the weather station turns prism-shaped panels on a mechanical display to give an impression of how sunny, cloudy or rainy the weather is. </p>
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<p>The exhibit allows visitors to immerse themselves in a visual display of life on the island. Like impressionist paintings before, it uses aesthetic elements and principles to make the data feel more real. If scientists are to successfully engage people with complex data, they need to generate experiences that allow them to connect and relate to it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Carroll has received funding from SMART EXPERTISE funding from Welsh government. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aidan Taylor has received funding from the Welsh government SMART Expertise programme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Pigott works for Cardiff Metropolitan University. He receives funding from SMART expertise / Welsh gov.</span></em></p>
Why modern science needs more Claude Monets.
Fiona Carroll, Reader in Human Computer Interaction, Cardiff Metropolitan University
Aidan Taylor, Lecturer in Computer Embedded Design, Cardiff Metropolitan University
Jon Pigott, Senior Lecturer in Art and Design, Cardiff Metropolitan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/163268
2021-06-30T04:09:16Z
2021-06-30T04:09:16Z
An orgy of sunlight, colour and hedonism: the French Impressionists are an oasis in a gloomy Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408996/original/file-20210630-27-1xeyndm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2995%2C2474&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Camille Pissarro, French (born in the Danish West Indies) 1830–1903. Spring pasture, 1889. Oil on canvas, 60.0 x 73.7 cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Deposited by the Trustees of the White Fund, Lawrence, Massachusetts Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. NGV International</em></p>
<p>When prospects for overseas travel are bleak, a major exhibition of the work of the French Impressionists is a salvation — a beautiful shining oasis in a somewhat gloomy Australia. </p>
<p>When I lived in Cambridge Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Boston, the <a href="https://www.mfa.org/">Museum of Fine Arts</a> in Boston was an unexpected veritable treasure trove. Unexpected in that it is not as well known as some of the museums in New York, London or Paris. </p>
<p>But, with more than 450,000 art objects, it is the 14th largest art museum in the world and is famed for its collection of French Impressionism. </p>
<p>This “neglect” means, of the 100 works at this exhibition, about 80% have never before been seen in this country. </p>
<p>The exhibition sparkles with unexpected treasures including Edouard Manet’s Street singer (c1862), a huge vibrant life-size painting; Claude Monet’s luminous Poppy Field in a hollow near Giverny (1885); Paul Cézanne’s classic Fruit and a jug on a table (c1890–94) and the pulsating Vincent van Gogh, Houses at Auvers (1890).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Cézanne, French 1839–1906. Fruit and a jug on a table c.1890–94. Oil on canvas 32.4 x 40.6 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T. Spaulding Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
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<h2>The accessibility of Impressionism</h2>
<p>The National Gallery of Victoria’s Winter Masterpieces series of exhibitions commenced in 2004 with the exhibition Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay. There were then exhibitions of Monet (2013), Degas (2016) and Van Gogh (2017). </p>
<p>Impressionism has certainly been a unifying thread of the Winter Masterpieces series. These four exhibitions have attracted almost a million visitors between them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent van Gogh, Dutch (worked in France) 1853–90. Houses at Auvers 1890. Oil on canvas, 75.6 x 61.9 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T. Spaulding Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is it about Impressionism that makes it the most popular art movement amongst the general public? In part, it is because it is such an accessible and undemanding art language. </p>
<p>There is no demand made on the viewer to decipher the complexities of mythology — the naked gods in complicated embraces — and the subject matter deals with a reality known and experienced by many in their audience. There is a celebration of a physically accessible countryside; of a hedonistic lifestyle with pretty girls and handsome young men frolicking, flirting and enjoying parties, spending a day at the races or travelling to beauty spots abroad. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pierre Auguste Renoir, French 1841–1919. Dance at Bougival 1883. Oil on canvas 181.9 x 98.1 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Picture Fund Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Dance at Bougival (1883), an icon image for this exhibition, shows a man eating up the woman in his arms on the dancefloor, while companions sit at tables drinking and sharing the cheer. There is a palpable feeling of a joyous letting go, and celebrating. </p>
<p>You can almost hear the dance music radiating from the picture.</p>
<p>In part, the popularity of Impressionism must lie in the new way of painting with the brighter and more luminous palette, generally the broken, roughly applied brush strokes and the move of the whole colour scheme away from the dark tonal masses to vibrant heightened colour reflexes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet, French 1840–1926. Meadow with poplars c. 1875. Oil on canvas 54.6 x 65.4 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of David P. Kimball in memory of his wife Clara Bertram Kimball. Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This applies equally to Camille Pissarro’s light and breezy Spring pasture (1889) or the radiating Claude Monet’s Meadow with poplars (c1875). By classical standards, the works appear “unfinished” or impressions of scenes, instead of the carefully composed and compositionally resolved views with their mirror-like finishes. </p>
<p>Berthe Morisot’s White flowers in a bowl (1885) or Monet’s Grand Canal, Venice (1908) sit on the canvas like a sketch breathing with life and light and appear immediate and accessible. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Berthe Morisot, French 1841–95. White flowers in a bowl 1885. Oil on canvas 46.0 x 55.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T. Spaulding Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The iconic and the forgotten</h2>
<p>Particularly when Impressionism is interpreted in the very broad sense of the word, as it is in this exhibition to include much of what immediately preceded it, Impressionism attracted some of the best painters over several generations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Degas, French 1834–1917. Racehorses at Longchamp 1871, possibly reworked in 1874. Oil on canvas, 34.0 x 41.9 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston S. A. Denio Collection—Sylvanus Adams Denio Fund and General Income. Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This show includes some of the greats in realism such as Gustave Courbet, a good selection of Eugène Louis Boudin, the wonderful tonal landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, a cross-section of the Barbizon School of landscape painters, right through to Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Monet, van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. </p>
<p>It is a very strong show that combines famous iconic images by some of the great names, such as Monet’s much reproduced and discussed Grainstack (snow effect) (1891) and his water lilies series, with some quirky and puzzlingly neglected works, including Gustave Caillebotte’s Man at his bath (1884). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet, French 1840–1926. Grainstack (Snow effect) 1891. Oil on canvas, 65.4 x 92.4 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Miss Aimée and Miss Rosamond Lamb in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Horatio Appleton Lamb. Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This Boston Impressionists show, on one hand, caters for a popular audience with a display of some of quintessential “masterpieces” of French Impressionism that will find a ready resonance with any viewer seeking an escapist orgy of sunlight, colour and hedonism. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it is also intended for the very erudite viewer, who can be inducted into the complex nuances and states of Pissarro’s etchings or into Boudin’s profound explorations of colour and mood.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French 1864–1901. Carmen Gaudin in the artist’s studio 1888. Oil on canvas 55.9 x 46.7 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T. Spaulding Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even as COVID clouds gather once more over Australia, French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is almost guaranteed to become a blockbuster exhibition success. </p>
<p>It will assist us in better understanding the Australian Impressionism exhibition presently on show at NGV Australia, and further our love affair with Impressionism. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/she-oak-and-sunlight-the-best-feelgood-show-i-have-seen-since-covid-158311">She-Oak and sunlight: 'the best feelgood show I have seen since COVID'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is at NGV International until October 3</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is the 14th largest gallery in the world, and now Melbourne can see some of its masterpieces.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/158311
2021-04-06T20:10:06Z
2021-04-06T20:10:06Z
She-Oak and sunlight: ‘the best feelgood show I have seen since COVID’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393516/original/file-20210406-19-1ne2rz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2995%2C1809&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clara Southern, Australia 1860-1940, An old bee farm, c.1900. Oil on canvas, 69.1 × 112.4 cm</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1942</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: She-Oak and sunlight: Australian Impressionism, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/she-oak-and-sunlight/">She-Oak and sunlight</a> is a visually stunning exhibition that brings together some of Australia’s most famous and much-loved paintings and presents them within a radically different context.</p>
<p>Dr Anne Gray, the curator of this exhibition, dismisses the traditional title for these painters, “<a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/h/heidelberg-school">The Heidelberg School</a>”, as a misnomer — they worked in Eaglemont, not Heidelberg, and it was never a school. </p>
<p>She also argues in her exhibition the idea this was a purely “blokey” orientation in art, with Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder and Frederick McCubbin as the only serious members, needs to be revised.</p>
<p>They shared the limelight with a number of talented women artists including Jane Sutherland, Clara Southern, Iso Rae, May Vale, Jane Price and Ina Gregory, all of whom are present in considerable numbers in this exhibition. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ethel Carrick, Australia, 1872-1952, Flower market, 1907. Oil on wood panel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by the late Major B. R. F. MacNay, and Mrs D. Mac`Nay, Fellow 1994</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, Gray contextualises the narratives presented by these painters with older co-existing narratives by contemporary Australian Indigenous artists, especially <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/172/">William Barak</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-importance-of-william-baraks-ceremony-60846">Explainer: the importance of William Barak’s Ceremony</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The title of the show, She-oak and sunlight, is derived from the title of a small painting by Tom Roberts, recently acquired by the NGV, exhibited in one of Australia’s most famous/notorious exhibitions of all time, the <a href="http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artsets/xyb2jw">9 by 5 Impression Exhibition</a> that opened August 17, 1889 at Buxton’s Art Gallery, Swanston Street, Melbourne. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Painting: a dusky tree against a dry landscape and blue sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tom Roberts, Australia 1856–1931, She-oak and sunlight, 1889. Oil on wood panel, 30.4 × 30.1 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Jean Margaret Williams Bequest, K. M. Christensen and A. E. Bond Bequest, Eleanor M. Borrow Bequest, The Thomas Rubie Purcell and Olive Esma Purcell Trust and Warren Clark Bequest, 2019</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roberts’s She-oak and sunlight appeared as no. 19 in the catalogue and perfectly epitomises the mood of the exhibition. The she-oak, or Casuarina, is native to Australia. The show celebrates the “Australianness” of the vegetation and topography, and stresses the quality of the intense, bleaching light in this country. </p>
<p>This is the best feelgood show I have seen since COVID, glowing and basking in nationalism and optimism.</p>
<h2>The French and the Australians</h2>
<p>The extent to which these painters could be described as “impressionists” depends a little bit on definitions. </p>
<p>Like the French Impressionists, these Australian painters worked outside <em><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/plein-air">en plein air</a></em>, they made rapid, sketchy paintings that favoured landscapes and everyday subjects, they employed compositional structures influenced by photography and they were aware — even if in some cases indirectly — of the work of the French artists. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three children outdoors" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jane Sutherland, United States, 1853-1928, Field naturalists c.1896. Oil on canvas, 80.9 × 121.3 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Gift of Mrs E. H. Shackell,1962</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 9 by 5 catalogue (the name derived from the fact many of the paintings in the show were painted on nine by five inch cedar cigar box lids), the artists stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>An effect is only momentary; so an impressionist tries to find his place. Two half hours are never alike […] So in these works, it has been the object of the artist to render faithfully, and thus obtain first records of effects widely differing, and often of very fleeting character.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The French Impressionists’ use of “colour theory”, with paint applied in small adjacent dabs of colour and the whole colour palette moved to the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, was in little evidence in the 1889 Melbourne exhibition. Most of the Australian paintings had colour applied traditionally in tonal gradations.</p>
<p>Some Australian artists who lived primarily in France, especially <a href="https://www.artistprofile.com.au/john-peter-russell-rising-obscurity/">John Peter Russell</a>, were much closer to the French Impressionists in mood, spirit and technique, but these were essentially expats.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-monet-to-rodin-john-russell-australias-french-impressionist-maps-artistic-connections-100249">From Monet to Rodin, John Russell: Australia's French Impressionist maps artistic connections</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Outstanding visual intelligence</h2>
<p>Prior to this show, the benchmark exhibition of Australian impressionists was Jane Clark’s <a href="http://www.artgallery.nws.gov.au/collection/works/?exhibition_id=2004">Golden Summers: Heidelberg and beyond</a> held at the NGV in 1985 that broke all records for attendances. A <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/australianimpressionism">less successful exhibition</a> covering similar ground was held at the same gallery in 2007. </p>
<p>Gray’s exhibition, with over 250 artworks, is outstanding for its scope, scale and visual intelligence in the way it has been presented. Not only have all of the key works been assembled from around Australia, which is no mean feat — for example, to prise out of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, McCubbin’s Down on his luck, 1889, a destination painting — but new visual connections are created throughout the show. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A swag man sits, dejected." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frederick McCubbin, Australia, 1855-1917, Down on his luck c.1889. Oil on canvas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Purchased 1896, State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A painting by the French Impressionist, Alfred Sisley in the collection of the NGV is juxtaposed with Russell’s painting of Madame Sisley in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW. Gray has realised both were painted on the same spot in Moret-sur-Loing with the same white chalk cliff in the background.</p>
<p>Édouard Manet, Claude Monet and James Abbott McNeill Whistler all feature in this exhibition to demonstrate the international artistic milieu in which these artists operated.</p>
<p>The 9 by 5 exhibition has been recreated with 55 of the original works reassembled in a separate room with Handel’s music filling the chamber, as was celebrated in the original display. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-our-art-museums-finally-opened-their-eyes-to-australian-women-artists-102647">How our art museums finally opened their eyes to Australian women artists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A startling surprise is seeing one of Australia’s most famous paintings, Arthur Streeton’s The purple noon’s transparent might c.1896, as one has never seen it before. It has been cleaned of its dirty varnish during the COVID lockdown and now radiates with light and warmth – the glowing mystique of the Hawkesbury River near Richmond.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A brilliant blue river." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arthur Streeton, Australia 1867–1943, The purple noon’s transparent might c.1896. Oil on canvas, 123.0 × 123.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased1896</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the icons of Australian art, including Roberts’s <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/2920/">Shearing the rams</a>, Streeton’s <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/832/">Fire’s on</a>, Roberts’s Break away and McCubbin’s <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/frederick-mccubbin-the-pioneer-1904/">The pioneer</a>, share the space with William Barak’s images of the Rainbow serpent and sacred ceremonies.</p>
<p>I suspect this will become the definitive exhibition of our evergreen favourite national artists who created quintessential images of Australia that have ever since haunted our collective imagination.</p>
<p><em>She-Oak and sunlight: Australian Impressionism, is at NGV Australia until August 22.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This exhibition will become the definitive show of Australian Impressionism - and it features talented women artists alongside iconic males.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/156747
2021-03-22T18:48:30Z
2021-03-22T18:48:30Z
We can’t seem to get enough of the Impressionists but can we move on from the sanitised version?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389709/original/file-20210315-19-1colpuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C5%2C739%2C504&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Degas' Women on a Café Terrace in the Evening (1877) depicts a group of prostitutes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WikiArt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Barely a year goes by on the Australian art calendar without the announcement of a major Impressionist exhibition. The latest is the National Gallery of Victoria’s “international exclusive show”, <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/french-impressionism/">French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston</a>.</p>
<p>The NGV’s is the next instalment in a series of recent Impressionist exhibitions, including <a href="https://nga.gov.au/impressionsunrise/default.cfm">Monet: Impression Sunrise</a> (National Gallery of Australia, 2019) and <a href="https://www.agsa.sa.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/colours-of-impressionism-masterpieces-from-the-mus%C3%A9e-dorsay/">Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay</a> (Art Gallery of South Australia, 2018).</p>
<p>The global popularity of Impressionism can be traced back to 1886 when the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel mounted an exhibition of 300 Impressionist works in New York. Attracting widespread acclaim, it was a turning point in public awareness of the art movement. </p>
<p>The NGV announcement includes phrases such as “artistic energy and intellectual dynamism”, “radical practitioners” and a “breathtaking display”. But such cliche and hyperbole belies the more interesting realities of a divided group of artists striving to capture the complexities of the emerging modern world around them.</p>
<h2>A romanticised story</h2>
<p>At the heart of the popularity of Impressionism is a romanticised story of a group of young artists battling against the conservatism of the dominant French Salon. They are repeatedly presented as a passionate collective who embraced <em>plein air</em> painting, capturing nature with unprecedented freshness.</p>
<p>Impressionist exhibitions almost invariably perpetuate the notion of the male artist as a genius. An aura surrounds artists such as Monet, Renoir and Degas. They are repeatedly viewed as heroic radicals who shunned the establishment, rallying together to champion a new form of art.</p>
<p>For decades, Monet in particular, has been singled out for praise. From his pioneering work at La Grenouillère to his final days at Giverny, Monet is applauded for abandoning the studio and immersing himself in the landscape. His paintings have become the paragon of the Impressionists’ ability to authentically capture the world around them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This romanticised story of visionary artists working in nature is echoed in the stories of Impressionism beyond France. By the late 19th century local variants of Impressionism had spread to places such as America and Australia. <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/she-oak-and-sunlight/">She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism</a> will also be held at the NGV this year, presenting the work of leading exponents of Australian Impressionism. Into the 20th century, Impressionist techniques continued to be embraced in countries beyond France, including Japan and China. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/art-gallery-sa-goes-back-to-impressionisms-colourful-roots-with-masterpieces-from-musee-dorsay-94163">Art Gallery SA goes back to Impressionism's colourful roots with masterpieces from Musee d'Orsay</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Impressionist paintings readily lend themselves to merchandising, with their work reproduced on a vast array of mementos, including postcards, posters, mugs, magnets, scarves, jigsaw puzzles and even umbrellas. For galleries, the large crowds and their willingness to spend on such items are a winning blockbuster formula. Critics such as <a href="https://www.museumnext.com/article/blockbuster-addiction/">Meta Knol</a> have lamented our addiction to the blockbuster but such a successful model is difficult to abandon.</p>
<h2>Division</h2>
<p>However, the version of Impressionism that accompanies most blockbusters is highly sanitised. In truth, the artists were not the united group of popular imagination. </p>
<p>Degas was a particularly divisive figure. He was strident in his view that no-one in the group should exhibit with the conservative Salon, which had rejected and ridiculed them. This was an abiding source of tension.</p>
<p>In 1879 Renoir exhibited <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438815">Madame Charpentier with her Children</a> at the Salon, which enraged Degas. A further feud broke out when Monet followed Renoir’s example and submitted <a href="https://collections.dma.org/artwork/5320662">Seine at Lavacourt</a> to the Salon. While usually portrayed as radicals, clearly Renoir and Monet were happy to court official recognition. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pierre Auguste Renoir, Mme. Charpentier and Her Children , 1878.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pissaro and Degas argued that Monet should be thrown out of the group and consequently Monet, Renoir and Sisley did not exhibit in the fifth exhibition in 1880. As the bickering escalated, Durand-Ruel increasingly resorted to solo shows. By the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886 there was considerable acrimony within the group with Monet also rejecting Seurat’s Neo-Impressionism and his scientific application of optical principles. </p>
<p>The familiar blockbuster tropes also mask the reality that many Impressionists painted disturbing observations of human relationships and social division. Art historian <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/28481/the-painting-of-modern-life-by-tj-clark/">T. J. Clarke in The Painting of Modern Life</a> demonstrates that urbanisation and political instability in late 19th century France provides a much richer context to appreciate Impressionism than stories of individual geniuses capturing a fleeting moment.</p>
<p>For the Impressionists, places of leisure were ideal for observing human interaction. Degas, in particular, did not shy away from presenting the undercurrents of urban life. In <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/edgar-degas/women-on-a-cafe-terrace-in-the-evening-1877">Women on a Café Terrace in the Evening</a> (1877), for instance, he depicts a group of prostitutes. The woman in the middle is biting her thumb. Often interpreted as a simple sign of her boredom, art historian <a href="https://www.getty.edu/publications/resources/virtuallibrary/0892367296.pdf">Hollis Clayson</a> suggests this gesture references particular sexual activities. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Renoir’s Dance At Bougival, 1883.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32592/dance-at-bougival?ctx=12f7d074-54c5-4ccb-a347-135fda9411dc&idx=0">Dance at Bougival</a>, one of the major paintings in the forthcoming NGV French Impressionism exhibition, Renoir depicts a couple dancing in the new open-air cafes. </p>
<p>On one level this is a simple scene of frivolity but a closer look reveals something more menacing at play. The woman is looking away from the boatman with her eyes cast down, while he leans into her with his face obscured by his straw hat. Their flushed cheeks and the way he pulls her towards him invites an uneasy contemplation of their relationship. </p>
<p>The discarded bouquet and the burnt matches add to the sense that something is awry. Renoir would have been very familiar with the use of such items as symbols of fallen virtue.</p>
<h2>Tension</h2>
<p>Even in a portrait as endearing as Mary Cassatt’s <a href="https://collections.mfa.org/objects/34519/ellen-mary-in-a-white-coat?ctx=7d50b3b7-6bf5-4e82-a2f6-3832db15509e&idx=25">Ellen Mary in a White Coat</a> — also among the paintings coming to Melbourne — there is a tension. Feminist art historians such as <a href="https://www.frieze.com/article/overlooked-radicalism-impressionist-mary-cassatt">Griselda Pollock</a> have argued there are radical undercurrents to such domestic images.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-national-gallery-is-erasing-women-from-the-history-of-art-42505">The National Gallery is erasing women from the history of art</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Cassatt, Ellen Mary Cassatt In A White Coat, 1896.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a single woman, Cassatt did not have the opportunity to paint a scene such as Renoir’s Dance at Bougival. Her gender and class denied her access to the open-air cafes. </p>
<p>Cassatt’s images of domesticity therefore reflect her confinement. The recurring imagery of little girls also reveals her concern for the next generation of women. The serious faced Ellen, who is swamped by her bonnet and coat, holds firmly to the chair as she looks to a point in the distance in this psychologically complex portrait.</p>
<p>Impressionist exhibitions will continue to delight large audiences. However, it is unfortunate that the anodyne story of the movement dominates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Findlay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hyperbole surrounds the Impressionists, who are perennial blockbuster fodder. In truth, they were not a united group of radicals and their subject matter is far darker than commonly acknowledged.
Elisabeth Findlay, Director of Queensland College of Art, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100249
2018-07-23T02:01:40Z
2018-07-23T02:01:40Z
From Monet to Rodin, John Russell: Australia’s French Impressionist maps artistic connections
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from John Russell:
Almond tree in blossom c1887
oil on gold ground on canvas on plywood 46.2 x 55.1 cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004 (2004.216)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1965, when Donald Finley, the news and information officer at Australia House, persuaded London art dealer Wildenstein & Co to introduce the English public to the work of a man then called “Australia’s Lost Impressionist”, the artist’s name was changed. In order to prevent confusion with John Russell, an 18th century English portrait painter, a middle name was inserted. So the world came to know of art by “John Peter Russell”, a name unfamiliar to its Antipodean owner. It is only in recent years that John Russell’s name has been reclaimed for his art.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
In the afternoon 1891 oil on canvas.
65.1 x 65.4 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased with funds provided by the Art Gallery Society of New South Wales 2016 Photo: AGNSW, Mim Stirling</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this exhibition, at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Wayne Tunnicliffe’s curatorial vision gives Russell his due as an artist interacting with his colleagues: sending information and ideas to Tom Roberts in Melbourne, supporting the angst-ridden Dutchman Vincent Van Gogh, mentoring the young Henri Matisse, learning from the virtuoso Claude Monet and establishing a life-long friendship with Auguste Rodin. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Vincent van Gogh 1886.
oil on canvas
60.1 x 45.6 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (State of the Netherlands) Photo: Maurice Tromp</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition gives physical evidence of the full extent of Russell’s connections to his many colleagues. The well known portrait of Van Gogh sits alongside a Van Gogh self portrait of the same period, linking the paintings by both style and subject. Magically, it also includes Van Gogh’s drawing, Haystacks. Given by the artist to Russell, he in turn gave it to the young Matisse. </p>
<p>The two Matisse paintings, showing an uncharacteristic bravura brushstroke, were the result of a visit to Russell at his home in Belle-Île, Brittany. Some years earlier Russell had seen Monet painting Belle-Île, and had introduced himself.
Monet’s <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/8356/">Port-Goulphar, Belle-Île</a> of 1887, which is in the collection of AGNSW, shows the degree to which the master influenced the student’s development, purifying his colour and freeing his brushwork, effectively turning him into an Impressionist. In letters to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Hosched%C3%A9">Alice Hoschedé</a>, Monet expressed pleasure at dining with the Australian (who he called an American). Russell was independently wealthy and so employed an excellent cook, much appreciated by the older artist.</p>
<p>Russell was born in Sydney, the son of the engineering family, P.N. Russell & Co, which was responsible for much of 19th century Sydney’s ironwork. His father believed his son was destined to join the family business. Unlike other wealthy young Australians, Russell was not educated at Oxford or Cambridge, but instead was sent to England to become a “gentleman apprentice” engineer. His father’s death in 1879 gave him the freedom to leave industry and turn to art. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Morning, Cruach en Mahr, Belle-Île-en-Mer c1905.
oil on canvas
60.4 x 73.5 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Private collection, London, courtesy of Nevill Keating Pictures, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It may be that his years at the ironworks at Lincoln led him to value realism over classicism, but when he first enrolled as an art student, Russell chose the realist approach of the Slade, where he was taught by the French artist Alphonse Legros. This was in contrast to the sedate Royal Academy School, usually favoured by colonials. Later, in Paris, he did not join fellow international students at the open studio of the Academie Julian, where the masters from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts would make a weekly appearance. </p>
<p>Instead, he enrolled at Fernand Cormon’s small studio school where approximately 35 mainly French students had a more intensive program. Fellow students included Toulouse Lautrec and Emile Bernard, but they were soon joined by an intense, very eccentric older Dutchman, Vincent Van Gogh. The ensuing friendship between these two was perhaps shaped in part by Russell’s independence of spirit, as to the Parisians he was an archetypal “wild Australian” who would always be a bit of an outsider. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Peasant woman with sunflowers,
oil on canvas.
32.5 x 46.5 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection of Allen Hunter & Carmel Dyer, Brisbane Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition traces Russell’s career beginning with an early self-portrait painted in Sydney and his travels in Granada with Tom Roberts. Some of the most beautiful drawings are of Marianna Antoinetta Mattiocco, the model who became his mistress and then his wife. They show her tactile beauty, the smooth tranquility of her face, the elegance of her form. In 1888, shortly before they married, Russell wrote to Rodin, requesting an introduction so that the sculptor might make a portrait of the new Madame Russell. Marianna Russell became the subject of several portrait busts by Rodin, some of which are included in the exhibition.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Almond tree in blossom, c1887.
oil on gold ground on canvas on plywood 46.2 x 55.1 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004 (2004.216)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Russell did not immediately move towards Impressionism. At first, under the influence of Van Gogh, he started to compose works influenced by the asymmetry of Japanese woodcuts. Both he and <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0176V1962">Van Gogh</a> admired almond blossoms, evoking in paint their transient beauty. In 1887, just after the death of his first son, Jean Paolo, Russell painted a series of blossom paintings and it is not too hard to see these as a tribute to that brief life.</p>
<p>One of the great joys of this exhibition is the large group of works painted at Belle-Île, where the Russells made their home. There are paintings of domesticity, with children, as well as some of the local people at work, but best of all is the wall displaying a series of paintings of the great crashing waves, where the artist’s rapid strokes define the foam and swirl of water. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Rough sea, Morestil c1900.
oil on canvas on hardboard
66 x 81.8 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased 1968 Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The beauty of gardens</h2>
<p>The turbulence of these works is contrasted with the luminous beauty of the landscapes he painted on visits to Antibes on the Riviera. Russell took great pleasure in the tranquil beauty of gardens, of flowers in season and the pattern of blossom. The last work in the exhibition, Mrs Russell among the flowers in the garden of Goulphar, Belle-Île 1907, shows a painstaking layering of a medley of colour as the field blossoms seem to move in homage to the one small, white-clad figure. At the time he was painting this Marianna was dying of cancer. He left Belle-Île soon after.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Mrs Russell among the flowers in the garden of Goulphar, Belle-Île 1907.
oil on canvas
79 x 100 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Musée d’Orsay, Paris, held by the Musée de Morlaix, bequest of Mme Jouve 1948</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are a number of reasons why Russell remained little known until decades after his death in 1930. Despite remarrying in 1912, he did not settle in one place for any length of time. The disruption of World War I led the family to relocate to England.</p>
<p>In 1921 Russell returned to Sydney, where after holding one exhibition at the Sydney Camera Circle, he ceased to exhibit. His last paintings of orange roofed bungalows overlooking the Harbour give the reason why. These modestly painterly works would have seemed extreme for a Sydney that only accepted modern art if it was smooth and flat. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Peter Russell,
Regatta, Rose Bay 1922.
oil on canvas
57 x 76 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Private collection, Melbourne Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Russell’s cousin Thea Proctor, one of the most influential tastemakers of her generation, ensured that he was not forgotten after his death. Thanks to her advocacy he appears in William Moore’s <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1057015">1934 Story of Australian Art</a> as a colleague of Tom Roberts and a friend of Rodin. In her later years, she continued to urge the AGNSW to acquire his work and also ensured that Bernard Smith knew of him when he was writing his definitive <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10290523?selectedversion=NBD1909577">Australian Painting 1790-1960</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
The garden, Longpré-les-Corps-Saints, 1887.
oil on canvas
73x120cm
Private collection, Melbourne</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is the second Russell exhibition to be organised by the gallery. The first, The Art of John Peter Russell of 1978, also exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, was the result of Ann Galbally’s 1975 PhD thesis.</p>
<p>Galbally has also contributed an essay to the current substantial catalogue, which includes transcripts of correspondence between Russell and Tom Roberts, Van Gogh and Rodin. While the earlier exhibitions established the breadth and quality of Russell, in this exhibition Tunnicliffe has shown the network of connections between artists, crossing national boundaries.</p>
<p><em>John Russell: Australia’s French Impressionist is on view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney until 11 November 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding in the past from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
John Russell, who was destined to become an engineer, instead became an artist in fin de siècle France – and a friend of Van Gogh, Monet and Rodin.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/94163
2018-03-29T01:36:40Z
2018-03-29T01:36:40Z
Art Gallery SA goes back to Impressionism’s colourful roots with masterpieces from Musee d'Orsay
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212537/original/file-20180328-189816-183xl9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Signac, France, 1863-1935, La bouée rouge (The red buoy), 1895, oil on canvas, 81.2 x 65 cm. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France ©photo Musée d'Orsay / rmn</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 1970s, art history was being rewritten by a generation of young scholars, including <a href="https://www.berkeley.edu./news/media/releases/2006/02/01_clarkmellon.shtml">TJ Clark</a> and a host of other neo-Marxists, who argued that painting was more than just a means of arranging colours on the surface of a canvas for aesthetic purposes. Art, they said, was also a mirror of society and of its political aspirations. By the turn of the century, this view had become the standard way of analysing movements such as Impressionism. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Exhibitions/ComingSoon/Colours_of_Impressionism">Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay</a>, at the Art Gallery of South Australia, moves away from this model and back towards a more traditional analysis largely based on colour. The exhibition includes more than 65 paintings from the famed Parisian museum curated by two of its staff – Marine Kisiel and Paul Perrin. There have been numerous Musée d’Orsay exhibitions in Australia, at least five, the most notable of these the impressive <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/the-impressionists/">The Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay</a> at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2004. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-from-the-great-wave-to-starry-night-how-a-blue-pigment-changed-the-world-81031">Friday essay: from the Great Wave to Starry Night, how a blue pigment changed the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Although these exhibitions are an important part of the French gallery’s revenue stream and many are drawn from the back room collection, the selection of work for the Adelaide exhibition is a good one. A number of key pieces have been removed from the walls of Musée d’Orsay’s permanent display and at least 50 of the paintings have never previously been exhibited in Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212554/original/file-20180329-189813-t5j0ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212554/original/file-20180329-189813-t5j0ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212554/original/file-20180329-189813-t5j0ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212554/original/file-20180329-189813-t5j0ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212554/original/file-20180329-189813-t5j0ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212554/original/file-20180329-189813-t5j0ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212554/original/file-20180329-189813-t5j0ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212554/original/file-20180329-189813-t5j0ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet, France, 1840-1926, Tulip field in Holland, 1886, oil on canvas, 65.5 x 81.5 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bequest of Princess Edmond de Polignac née Winnaretta Singer, 1947, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France, photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/Franck Raux ©photo Musée d'Orsay / rmn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition is built around the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(art)">formalist</a> notion that the development of Impressionism can to some extent be interpreted as a development of colour theory. As the French painter <a href="http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/events/exhibitions/archives/exhibitions-archives/browse/4/article/maurice-denis-6780.html?print=1&">Maurice Denis</a> famously observed in 1890, “Remember that a painting – before being a battle horse, a nude woman, or an anecdote of some sort – is essentially a flat surface covered with colours, put together in a certain order”. </p>
<p>Colours of Impressionism starts with the work of the French realist painter <a href="http://entrezdanslatelier.fr">Gustave Courbet</a> who rejected the tinted marble-like surfaces of the French academic tradition and introduced generous amounts of black to his palette. He also played with white snow landscapes articulated with blue shadows. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-vincent-van-goghs-olive-grove-with-two-olive-pickers-76312">Here's looking at: Vincent Van Gogh’s Olive grove with two olive pickers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At the time, a number of significant writers published on colour theory (which attempted to define and mix colours), including <a href="https://archive.org/details/goethestheoryco01goetgoog">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</a>, <a href="https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/chevreul.html">Michel-Eugène Chevreul</a>, <a href="https://www.osapublishin.org/josa/abstract.cfm?uri=josa-55-1-78">M.E. Brücke</a> and <a href="https://www.colorsystem.com/?page_id=812&lang=en">Hermann von Helmholtz</a>, all of which enhanced the science of seeing colour. Colour theories, together with <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-from-the-great-wave-to-starry-night-how-a-blue-pigment-changed-the-world-81031">the experience of Japanese prints </a> and the manufacture of pigments in tubes and the production of new chemical colours, were some of the key ingredients for the formalist concerns with colour for the Impressionist painters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212536/original/file-20180328-189830-1uqttbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212536/original/file-20180328-189830-1uqttbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212536/original/file-20180328-189830-1uqttbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212536/original/file-20180328-189830-1uqttbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212536/original/file-20180328-189830-1uqttbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212536/original/file-20180328-189830-1uqttbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212536/original/file-20180328-189830-1uqttbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212536/original/file-20180328-189830-1uqttbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet, France, 1840-1926, La cathédrale de Rouen. Le portail et la tour Saint-Romain, plein soleil (Rouen Cathedral: the portal and Saint-Romain tower, full sunlight), 1893, oil on canvas, 107 x 73.5 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France © photo Musée d'Orsay / rmn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition, in quite a didactic manner, arranges the paintings in separate rooms examining their relationship to the treatment of colour. Following two rooms of preludes to Impressionism, the core of the exhibition consists of five sections: Painting light; Greens and blues; the Impressionist palette; From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism and Rose and violet, which could also be called the aftermath of Impressionism. </p>
<p>Here, some painters like Renoir retreated into a classicising museum-like art, while others like Cézanne abstracted the image and sought out a restricted palette. Monet continued to push Impressionism to its logical conclusion, with seas of colour applied to a single object, such as the façade of the Rouen Cathedral caught at different times of day under different conditions of light.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212552/original/file-20180329-189810-wwgueo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212552/original/file-20180329-189810-wwgueo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212552/original/file-20180329-189810-wwgueo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212552/original/file-20180329-189810-wwgueo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212552/original/file-20180329-189810-wwgueo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212552/original/file-20180329-189810-wwgueo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212552/original/file-20180329-189810-wwgueo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212552/original/file-20180329-189810-wwgueo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Auguste Renoir, France, 1841-1919, Claude Monet, 1875, oil on canvas, 84 x 60.5 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bequest of Mr and Mrs Raymond Koechlin, 1931, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France, photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/Jean-Gilles Berizzi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition sparkles with subtle but wonderful associations that create the feeling of comradeship amongst a small band of friends exploring associated concerns in their art. For example, if one examines carefully Auguste Renoir’s portrait of Claude Monet in 1875, the background is Monet’s house and garden at Argenteuil. On the wall next to it is Monet’s painting Un coin d’appartement (A corner of the apartment) 1875, where the same foliage pinpoints the same location.</p>
<p>The May triptych brings together three small canvases, all painted in about 1872, but by three different artists: Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and Monet. It catches a moment in time when the three friends were working on parallel trajectories. The paintings are sketchy, rather than polished, and finished in the academic sense. Colour is applied in small dabs and not in blended colour masses and they are all landscape scenes executed with a palette stretched towards the ultraviolet end of the colour spectrum.</p>
<p>From this early unity of techniques and vision, within a decade or so, the artists moved in their own directions to create distinctive styles. Only Monet continued to adhere to the earlier ideas of Impressionism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212550/original/file-20180329-189801-g361pw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212550/original/file-20180329-189801-g361pw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212550/original/file-20180329-189801-g361pw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=171&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212550/original/file-20180329-189801-g361pw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=171&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212550/original/file-20180329-189801-g361pw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=171&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212550/original/file-20180329-189801-g361pw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212550/original/file-20180329-189801-g361pw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212550/original/file-20180329-189801-g361pw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘May triptych’ Left: Alfred Sisley, France, 1839-1899, Saint-Denis Island, 1872, oil on canvas, 50.5 x 65 cm; Centre: Camille Pissarro, France, 1830-1903, Entrance to the village of Voisins, 1872, oil on canvas, 46 x 55.5 cm; Right: Claude Monet, France, 1840-1926, Pleasure boats, 1872–73, oil on canvas, 49.2 x 65 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gift of Ernest May, 1923, Musée d’Orsay, Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/René-Gabriel Ojéda and Hervé Lewandowski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How convincing is this attempt to tell the history of the development of Impressionism as part of a history of the development of colour theory? What the exhibition does demonstrate, and what we have always known, is that the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists were obsessed with light and colour and actively combined empirical observation with a somewhat half-baked understanding of the science of colour perception. They devised techniques for working “en plein air” (working outside) and for working in series to capture the changing conditions of light.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-when-manet-met-degas-61081">Friday essay: When Manet met Degas</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Once the artists had mastered the techniques of colour application, they seemed bored to a standstill. Colour was absorbed into their general toolkit and they moved in different directions. Monet, as always, was the odd painter out and continued with his love affair with colour until the end of his life.</p>
<p>The exhibition comes to Adelaide after its initial showing at the National Gallery of Singapore and is being exhibited in the Elder Wing, the 19th Century space in the Adelaide gallery as you enter from North Terrace, which has been refurbished for the exhibition. This exhibition also appears to be the swansong for gallery director Nick Mitzevich before he takes up his new role as director of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra in June 2018.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Exhibitions/ComingSoon/Colours_of_Impressionism">Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay</a> is at the Art Gallery of South Australia until July 29 2018</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Impressionists were obsessed with the science of colour, which is celebrated in a new exhibition in Adelaide. At least 50 of the paintings have never previously been exhibited in Australia.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/79765
2017-07-26T20:15:23Z
2017-07-26T20:15:23Z
Decoding the Music Masterpieces: Debussy’s Clair de Lune
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179548/original/file-20170725-21564-v5f8kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Debussy's Clair de Lune belongs to the Impressionist movement, which included visual artists like Claude Monet. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>French composer Claude Debussy’s best-loved piano piece, Clair de Lune, has entered popular consciousness thanks to its regular performance. Its origins are complex and fascinating, combining influences from poetry, the music of the Baroque period (from around 1600 to 1750), and Impressionism, a style in music following on from that in visual arts. </p>
<p>The piece’s title, meaning “moonlight”, was added shortly before its publication in 1905 as the third movement of a four-part work called Suite Bergamasque. It was the same year Debussy’s beloved daughter, Claude-Emma, known as Chouxchoux, was born.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179549/original/file-20170725-26586-1buv7ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179549/original/file-20170725-26586-1buv7ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179549/original/file-20170725-26586-1buv7ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179549/original/file-20170725-26586-1buv7ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179549/original/file-20170725-26586-1buv7ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179549/original/file-20170725-26586-1buv7ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179549/original/file-20170725-26586-1buv7ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179549/original/file-20170725-26586-1buv7ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Debussy circa 1908.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The title comes from a poem of the same name, published in 1869, by the Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine. Debussy had already set this poem for voice and piano twice before, along with 18 other Verlaine poems. The poem speaks of “au calme clair de lune triste et beau” (the still moonlight sad and lovely). </p>
<p>It also describes “charmante masques et bergamasques”, which may have inspired the name of the whole suite. “Bergamasques” refers to masked festivals in the ancient <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commedia_dell%27arte">Italian theatre tradition</a>, common also through France, using archetypal peasant characters such as Harlequin, Columbine and Scaramouche from the town of Bergamo. </p>
<p>Debussy’s music was a turning point from the Romantic music that had dominated the 19th century to the music of the 20th century. When asked what rule he followed, he scandalised his harmony teachers by answering: “Mon plaisir” (My pleasure). </p>
<p>With fellow composer Maurice Ravel, Debussy is regarded as a leader of French Impressionism. Although Debussy disliked this term as applied to music, it is accepted now to refer to the composers’ use of harmony and texture in a way that recalls the light and colour of Impressionist painting. </p>
<p>Debussy’s iconic orchestral piece <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlR9rDJMEiQ">La mer</a>, also published 1905, used <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-from-the-great-wave-to-starry-night-how-a-blue-pigment-changed-the-world-81031">Hokusai’s Great Wave</a> on the cover, an artwork that directly inspired painters like Van Gogh. Another piece, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnnKmQ-wXZw">Reflets dans l’eau</a> (Reflections in the Water), seems to embody Impressionist qualities of glinting light and detached observation of nature rather than human participation, much as in Monet’s paintings of water lilies.</p>
<h2>Poetry in music</h2>
<p>The original title of Clair de Lune was actually Promenade sentimentale (Sentimental stroll), after a different Verlaine poem from an 1866 collection called Paysages tristes (Sad Landscapes). This poem is more likely to have been the inspiration for the music. The poem begins: “Le couchant dardait ses rayons suprêmes Et le vent berçait les nénuphars blêmes” (The setting sun cast its final rays And the breeze rocked the pale water lilies).</p>
<p>The stillness and meditative calm of these lines are evoked with great beauty at the opening of the piece: </p>
<p>The vagaries of the breeze waft gently in the following passage with the instruction “tempo rubato”, a musical term allowing the performer to speed up and slow down the music at their discretion. This builds to an intense moment perhaps recalling a later passage in the poem:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Where the vague mist conjured up some vast
</p>
Despairing milky ghost
<p></p>
With the voice of teals crying
<p></p>
As they called to each other, beating their wings.<p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>That simplicity, even sparseness of texture, surrounds a central section of gently undulating passages marked to be played a little faster (“Un poco mosso”).</p>
<p>The passage subtly transforms meditative melancholy to a moment of exaltation by lifting the melodic material higher in the piano’s range, where, like the teals beating their wings, it seems to take flight.</p>
<p>Following on from this, the opening ideas reappear, entering more softly this time and descending gradually to more lush and subtly darker harmonies, coloured by added notes.</p>
<h2>Ancient style</h2>
<p>Suite Bergamasque is one of a number of works by Debussy and his French contemporaries that paid homage to the “style ancien” (old style), which referred to the French Baroque period in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Referencing this style was popular after the mid-19th century. </p>
<p>It celebrated what was seen as the golden age of French music, and pushed back against what the French saw as the grandiosity of Wagner and declared French identity during a time of increasing militarisation in Germany. Two of the most noted composers of this golden age are Jean-Phillipe Rameau (1683-1764) and François Couperin (1668-1733), both of whom wrote suites for the keyboard instrument of the time, the harpsichord.</p>
<p>These suites had similar dance movements to Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque, which includes, along with Clair de Lune, a Prélude, a Menuet and a Passepied. In this context the original title makes more sense as a break between the Menuet and Passepied dances. Other works by Debussy making reference to this period include his Hommage à Rameau and his suite, Pour le Piano. </p>
<p>Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin (1919) exploits the same idea. Touchingly, each movement is dedicated to his friends recently fallen in the first world war. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wz165MCij6c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>A sense of mystery</h2>
<p>Despite this context and initial inspiration, Clair de Lune has no hint of actual Baroque style. It is unclear when this particular movement was completed but its sensual textures and poetic references to nature are closer to what we think of as musical Impressionism than the other movements of the Suite Bergamasque. Most of the suite was composed around 1890, but Debussy made substantial revisions in the year before its eventual publication in 1905. These included the name change from Promenade sentimentale to Clair de Lune. </p>
<p>Clair de Lune is treasured for its ethereal beauty and sense of mystery, so let’s not forget that we were forbidden by Debussy’s alter ego, <a href="http://www.cengage.com/music/book_content/049557273X_wrightSimms/assets/ITOW/7273X_63_%20ITOW.pdf">Monsieur Croche</a>, to pull our “jumping jacks to pieces”. Instead, perhaps we should heed Debussy’s more serious words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We should be constantly reminding ourselves that the beauty of a work of art is something that will always remain mysterious; that is to say one can never find out exactly “how it is done”. At all costs let us preserve this element of magic peculiar to music. By its very nature music is more likely to contain something of the magical than any other art.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Mccallum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Debussy’s Clair de Lune, meaning ‘moonlight’, is one of the most easily recognised pieces of music, but its origins are complex. The piece was influenced by poetry, Baroque music and the Impressionist movement.
Stephanie Mccallum, Associate Professor Piano Division, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/81031
2017-07-20T20:15:05Z
2017-07-20T20:15:05Z
Friday essay: from the Great Wave to Starry Night, how a blue pigment changed the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from Katsushika Hokusai, The great wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki namiura), (1830–34), from the Thirty-six views of Mt Fuji (Fugaku-sanjū-rokkei)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1909 (426-2)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hokusai’s The great wave off Kanagawa remains the enduring image of Japanese art. The print depicts a giant wave with unmistakable frothing tentacles poised to smash a boat below. The boat’s occupants toil uncaring or unaware of the hovering deluge - the curve of their vessel matching the lines of the heaving sea around them. With the intense drama unfolding in the foreground, the central image of the work - the white-capped Mount Fuji - is easily missed, or mistaken for another ocean crest. </p>
<p>Although diminutive in scale, the importance of Hokusai’s “Great Wave” cannot be overstated. The work profoundly motivated the French Impressionist movement, which in-turn shaped the course of European Modernism, the artistic and philosophical movement that would define the early 20th century. As such, this small print exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria from July provides a valuable link to the gallery’s recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/van-gogh-and-the-seasons-is-a-sensitively-curated-crowd-pleaser-despite-a-paucity-of-masterpieces-76803">Van Gogh exhibition</a>. </p>
<p>The most immediate and attractive aspect of Hokusai’s wave is its colour. At 70 years old, Hokusai was a master and created the image using four printing blocks. The astounding power of the work belies its restrictive palette – it’s essentially a study in blue. </p>
<p>The story of this blue pigment highlights the role of cultural exchange at the heart of creative discovery and ranks among the more contradictory tales in the history of art. The vibrant hue, long considered to be quintessentially Japanese, was actually a European innovation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178576/original/file-20170718-22039-dlaji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail from Katsushika Hokusai, The great wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki namiura), (1830–34), from the Thirty-six views of Mt Fuji (Fugaku-sanjū-rokkei). 25.7 × 37.7 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1909 (426-2)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Colourful figures</h2>
<p>In truth, it had been invented half a world away, 130 years before Hokusai’s wave broke, in an accident involving one of Europe’s most colourful figures: Johann Conrad Dippel. Born in the actual “Castle Frankenstein” in Germany in 1673, the enigmatic theologian and passionate dissector believed the souls of the living could be funnelled from one corpse to another, thus becoming the rumoured inspiration for Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18490.Frankenstein">Frankenstein</a>. </p>
<p>In his thirties, Dippel had become captivated by the proto-science of alchemy, but like so many in the profession, had failed to convert base metals into gold. He instead settled on the apparently easier task of inventing an elixir of immortality. The consequence was Dippel’s oil, a compound so toxic that two centuries later it would be deployed as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dippel%27s_oil">chemical weapon in World War II</a>.</p>
<p>To cut costs in his Berlin laboratory, Dippel lab-shared with the Swiss pigment maker Johann Jacob Diesbach, a fellow scientist engaged in the lucrative business of producing colours. One fateful evening around 1705, when Diesbach was preparing a batch of crushed insects, iron sulphate and potash in a reliable recipe for a deep red pigment, he accidentally used one of Dippel’s implements infected by the noxious oil. </p>
<p>The following morning the pair found not the expected red, but a deep blue. The immense value of the substance was immediately clear. The recipe for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_blue">Egyptian blue</a> used by the Romans had been lost to history some time in the middle ages. Its substitute, lapis lazuli, consisting of crushed Afghan gemstones, sold at astronomical rates. So the discovery of a stable blue colour was literally more valuable than gold. Adding further worth, the pigment could be blended to produce entirely new colours, a process that the costly lapis lazuli did not allow.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.chemistryworld.com/podcasts/prussian-blue/6101.article">The discovery sparked “blue fever” in Europe</a>. Dippel, suddenly forced to flee legal action in Berlin for his controversial theological positions, failed to commercialise the newly named “Prussian blue”, but his dazzling co-invention was a secret too big to keep.</p>
<p>Within a few short years, the recipe had gone into factory production. It was used extensively in painting, wallpaper, flags, postage stamps, and became the official uniform colour of the Prussian Army. People seemed drunk on the stuff. Indeed, they were actually drinking it. By mid century, the British East India Company was <a href="http://www.tching.com/2011/08/waiter-my-tea-is-blue/">dyeing Chinese tea Prussian Blue</a> to increase its exotic appeal back in Europe .</p>
<h2>Blue arrives in Asia</h2>
<p>In the early 1800s, a Guangzhou entrepreneur deciphered the recipe and began manufacturing the pigment in China at a much lower cost. Despite Japan’s strict ban on all imports and exports, the colour found its way to the printmaking industry in Osaka, Japan where it was trafficked as “bero”, a derivation from the Dutch “Berlyns blaauw” (“Berlin blue”). Its vivid hue, tonal range and foreignness saw it explode in popularity just as it had in Europe. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178740/original/file-20170719-10341-15oyw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178740/original/file-20170719-10341-15oyw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178740/original/file-20170719-10341-15oyw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178740/original/file-20170719-10341-15oyw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178740/original/file-20170719-10341-15oyw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178740/original/file-20170719-10341-15oyw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178740/original/file-20170719-10341-15oyw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178740/original/file-20170719-10341-15oyw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Katsushika Hokusai, The Amida Falls in the far reaches of the Kisokaidō Road (Kiso no oku Amida-ga-taki) (1834–35) from the A tour to the waterfalls in various provinces (Shokoku taki meguri) series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hokusai was one of the first Japanese printmakers to boldly embrace the colour, a decision that would have major implications in the world of art. Using it extensively in his series Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji (1830), of which the Great Wave was the first, the pigment especially lent itself to expressing both depth in water and distance, crucial atmospheric qualities to render land and seascapes.</p>
<p>Hokusai and his contemporary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshige">Hiroshige</a> became renowned for their depictions of pure landscape form. But although extremely popular in mainstream society, these woodblock prints were seen as vulgar by the Japanese literati and beneath consideration for artistic merit.</p>
<p>When Japan’s isolationist policies finally ended under <a href="https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/black_ships_and_samurai/bss_essay01.html">threat of war from the US Navy in 1853</a>, the prints were used as wrapping paper for more worthy trade trinkets.</p>
<p>Following Paris’s International Exposition of 1867, their value dramatically shifted. A showcase at the inaugural Japanese Pavilion elevated the artistic status of woodblock prints and a craze for their collection quickly followed. Among the most prized were the striking blue landscapes, particularly by Hokusai and Hiroshige, that led European artists to incorrectly deem the colour as idiosyncratically Japanese. </p>
<p>It wasn’t just the colour, style and execution of Hokusai’s prints that made them so radically influential, but the subject matter too. His collection of <a href="http://library.princeton.edu/news/2014-12-16/hokusai%E2%80%99s-manga">“manga” sketches</a> elevated everyday street life in to the realm of art, ideas that were a revelation for Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Both borrowed heavily from Hokusai’s depictions of marginal society and the <a href="http://slideplayer.com/slide/7334540/24/images/43/(below)+Edgar+Degas,+The+Tub,+1886,+pastel+on+paper,+23+x+32+(left)+Katsushika+Hokusai,+Women+at+the+Public+Bath,+from+the+Manga+vol.+I,+c.+1820,+color+woodblock,+7+x+4+In+the+manga,+Degas+said,+he+found+relief+from+Western+art%E2%80%99s+obsession+with+the+female+form+divine.+European+artists+continually+borrowed+motifs+from+the+manga..jpg">bodies of women in repose</a>. </p>
<p>Claude Monet was so seduced by the “Japonism” aesthetic he acquired 250 Japanese prints, <a href="http://fondation-monet.com/en/giverny-2/the-japanese-prints/">including 23 by Hokusai</a>. The obsession bled from Monet’s art to his life and the painter modelled his garden after a Japanese print while his wife sported a <a href="http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/la-japonaise-camille-monet-in-japanese-costume-33556">kimono around the house</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps the single most vividly identifiable influence upon the European modernist founders is Van Gogh’s celebrated Starry Night, which owes everything to Hokusai’s blue wave from its <a href="http://carterf.faculty.mjc.edu/humanities/Images__East_Meets_West.html">colour to the shape of its sky</a>. In letters to his brother, Van Gogh professed the Japanese master had left a deep emotional impact on him. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178741/original/file-20170719-27190-pw9wvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178741/original/file-20170719-27190-pw9wvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178741/original/file-20170719-27190-pw9wvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178741/original/file-20170719-27190-pw9wvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178741/original/file-20170719-27190-pw9wvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178741/original/file-20170719-27190-pw9wvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178741/original/file-20170719-27190-pw9wvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178741/original/file-20170719-27190-pw9wvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Van Gogh’s Starry Night.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hokusai’s European influence</h2>
<p>The importance of Hokusai to the early European modernist movement is both <a href="http://bestarts.org/japanese-culture-european-art-fin-de-siecle/">immense and well mapped</a>. Much less known is the extent to which Hokusai had himself borrowed from European image culture. Although in the artist’s lifetime, Japan was subject to Sakoku, the 250-year policy that forbade exchange with the outside world on penalty of death, a clandestine group of Japanese artists and scientists had dedicated themselves to studying the exotic mysteries of Western representation. </p>
<p>Hokusai drew influence from a particular “<a href="http://laurajohrowland.wikia.com/wiki/Rangakusha">Rangakusha</a>” (scholar of Dutch texts) painter named Shiba Kokan, who experimented with European principles of composition. In The Great Wave, Hokusai abandoned traditional Japanese <a href="http://www.technologystudent.com/designpro/isomet1.htm">isometric view</a>, where motifs were scaled according to importance, and instead adopted the dynamic style of <a href="http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/intro5.html">Western perspective</a> featuring intersecting lines of sight. </p>
<p>This lent the work the dramatic sense of the wave about to break on top of the viewer. The embracing of his final works by Europeans is in part due to Hokusai’s use of a familiar compositional style. </p>
<p>Yet this historical truth lay dormant for decades as it deeply contradicted the European vision of Japan. In the Western imagination, Japan was a land preserved in amber, a pure and innocent people in close communion with nature whose isolation had sealed them from the horrors that industrialisation had wrought upon Europe. </p>
<p>In reality, Hokusai had skillfully blended European colour and structure with Japanese motifs and techniques into a seamless work of international appeal. Certainly, without Hokusai’s striking print, the great wave of European Modernism might never have happened. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/hokusai/">art of Hokusai</a> will be showing at the National Gallery of Victoria until October 15 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh Davies has been funded to undertake creative research into game cultures in Japan through Asialink. </span></em></p>
Hokusai’s Great Wave is the enduring image of Japanese art. Less well known is the story of its primary pigment - Prussian blue - which was created in a lab accident in Berlin and sparked ‘blue fever’ in Europe.
Dr Hugh Davies, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/63500
2016-08-04T20:10:16Z
2016-08-04T20:10:16Z
How we used a particle accelerator to find the hidden face in Degas’s Portrait of a woman
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133102/original/image-20160804-478-ojcyy3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The X-rays of the Australian Synchrotron reveal a remarkably clear picture of the woman's face.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Thurrowgood</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133104/original/image-20160804-505-1w2tpsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133104/original/image-20160804-505-1w2tpsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133104/original/image-20160804-505-1w2tpsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133104/original/image-20160804-505-1w2tpsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133104/original/image-20160804-505-1w2tpsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133104/original/image-20160804-505-1w2tpsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133104/original/image-20160804-505-1w2tpsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133104/original/image-20160804-505-1w2tpsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The painting as it appears in the gallery. The hidden face is upside down and obscured by the portrait on top.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Edgar Degas’s painting <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/edgar-degass-portrait-of-a-woman/">Portrait of a woman</a> is an enigmatic piece. When it was first acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1937, it was unveiled to mixed reviews.</p>
<p>Some commented that it showed the hallmarks of the French painter’s style around the 1870s. Others criticised its brown hues and the apparent discolouration across the woman’s face.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133105/original/image-20160804-496-870o6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133105/original/image-20160804-496-870o6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133105/original/image-20160804-496-870o6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133105/original/image-20160804-496-870o6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133105/original/image-20160804-496-870o6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133105/original/image-20160804-496-870o6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133105/original/image-20160804-496-870o6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133105/original/image-20160804-496-870o6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Earlier attempts at revealing the portrait underneath didn’t show much detail.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Little did they know at the time that the painting held a secret: there was another portrait of a woman, inverted, lying just under the surface. Some of the discolouration was due to this other ghostly figure bleeding through.</p>
<p>It appears that Degas abandoned this earlier work and repurposed the canvas for the newer portrait. But when did he paint the first woman? Who was the model?</p>
<p>Thus began a quest to reveal the hidden woman without disturbing the portrait on top. X-ray imagery showed a little more detail, revealing the faint outline of a young woman, painted perhaps only shortly before the canvas was re-used.</p>
<p>Subsequent infra-red photography suggested the original figure was painted as early as 1860, while other barely visible features hinted at an earlier creation.</p>
<p>And this is where the Australian Synchrotron comes into the picture. </p>
<h2>Brighter than the sun</h2>
<p>As is often the case in cutting-edge science, a recurring challenge is to devise technology that facilitates what researchers want to achieve. For every leap forward in power or speed, supporting equipment and infrastructure is needed to make the most of the new innovation.</p>
<p>Such was the situation at the Australian Synchrotron. Just after beginning operations in 2008, we formed a strong collaboration with the CSIRO and Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133107/original/image-20160804-513-6blq95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133107/original/image-20160804-513-6blq95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133107/original/image-20160804-513-6blq95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133107/original/image-20160804-513-6blq95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133107/original/image-20160804-513-6blq95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133107/original/image-20160804-513-6blq95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133107/original/image-20160804-513-6blq95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133107/original/image-20160804-513-6blq95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Maia detector is carefully positioned less than 2mm from the painting’s surface in order to achieve the highest quality data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Thurrowgood</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the time, we were receiving vast reams from the synchrotron’s <a href="http://www.synchrotron.org.au/aussyncbeamlines/x-ray-fluorescence-microscopy/techniques-available">X-ray fluorescence microscopy beamline</a> as it delivered light a million times brighter than the sun into a variety of scientific samples.</p>
<p>This collaboration helped us to develop an X-ray fluorescence detector capable of operating significantly faster than the current technology available at the time to make the most of this data. </p>
<p>We have also had an exciting and long-lasting collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). </p>
<p>The NGV has a fantastic collection of Australian and international art. Some items in the collection have unanswered questions that conventional analytical techniques are not able to resolve, such as Degas’s Portrait of a woman.</p>
<p>This collaboration has proved highly successful, and the new technology developed by CSIRO and Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States, dubbed the Maia detector, opened up innovative research that was previously not possible.</p>
<p>Before the Maia detector, we were restricted to acquiring small images of a sample – such as a leaf containing traces of metals, electrodes used in medical implants or the hidden layers in a painting – which contained a rather limited number of pixels, preventing us from seeing the whole picture. </p>
<p>With the new Maia detector, this hindrance was overcome. We are now able to routinely acquire elemental images composed of millions of pixels over large areas in only an hour or so. </p>
<h2>The reveal</h2>
<p>With the technology available at the Australian Synchrotron, we believed there was a good chance we could reveal the hidden portrait by subjecting small areas to radiation for only a fraction of a second. And, importantly, we could do this without damaging the artwork. </p>
<p>After several months of planning, the painting arrived from the NGV early in the morning and we secured it in a custom mount, with the detector only 2mm above the painting’s surface. We set up the coordinates of the area to scan so we could capture as much of the hidden portrait as possible. </p>
<p>After some fine-tuning of the X-ray beam, we launched a scan that would take approximately 33 hours to complete, giving individual images in excess of 31 megapixels, which is beyond the resolution of most of today’s best digital cameras. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133108/original/image-20160804-513-356y1p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133108/original/image-20160804-513-356y1p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133108/original/image-20160804-513-356y1p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133108/original/image-20160804-513-356y1p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133108/original/image-20160804-513-356y1p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133108/original/image-20160804-513-356y1p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133108/original/image-20160804-513-356y1p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133108/original/image-20160804-513-356y1p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By intentionally applying incorrect colours to elements it was possible to highlight areas of the painting and study artistic technique.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Thurrowgood</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We were able to do an initial analysis of the elements present and load this into the computer to give a real-time image of the painting as the data was collected. </p>
<p>It was incredibly exciting to see the image build up on the computer monitor and reveal, pixel by pixel, the hidden portrait beneath. </p>
<p>Based on our analysis and comparison to other works by Degas, we suggest the hidden portrait is of the model Emma Dobigny.</p>
<p>We know Degas painted Emma other times, such as the famous portrait from 1869 <a href="http://www.wikiart.org/en/edgar-degas/emma-dobigny-1869">named after her</a>.</p>
<p>We hope this data can provide art historians with more information about Degas and the evolution of his work. And we hope that the fruitful collaboration with the NGV and CSIRO continues for many more years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63500/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It took cutting edge technology and a collaboration between the Australian Synchrotron and the CSIRO to reveal the mysterious hidden lady in Degas’s famous painting.
Daryl Howard, Scientist - X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy, Australian Synchrotron
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.